


All I Want Is You

by telepathicheart



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, High School, Joyce and Hop in hs is my favorite thing, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-06-29 04:40:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19822738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telepathicheart/pseuds/telepathicheart
Summary: Joyce doesn't know what she could define he relationship with Jim Hopper is at this point. One day they're fine, and the next they're bickering like they're married. Which as a pair of 18 year olds isn't necessarily ideal. Graduation is just a few short months away, especially when Jim ships out for the military shortly after that day. With earth shattering news of her own, Joyce tries to figure out just how to handle it all at once.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A big shoutout to the lovely starmaammke who sent me the one liner prompt on tumblr. I ran with it and now here we are, a multi-chapter fic. Chapter one is just a more fleshed out edit of the prompt on tumblr, but all following chapters will be posted here shiny and new. I hope you all enjoy!!

Joyce hesitated as she looked at the house in front of her. She made all the trouble to get here, and now suddenly she had cold feet. As if the pep talk to herself in the car meant absolutely nothing. She could feel the crushing weight of anxiety in her chest, the way her breath caught with every inhale. But... She couldn’t put this off any longer. She was quite literally running out of time. 

The past few months had been quite the whirlwind for Joyce. There was her impending High School graduation, the evergrowing tension between her and Jim that she was sure would swallow her alive if she thought about it for too long. All thrown on top with one really big secret she held. A secret that she wasn’t meaning to keep a secret by any means... but life tends to get in the way of sound plans, more often than not. This was a band-aid that she needed to just rip off. No soaking in water, no lightly pulling at the ends to reduce the amount of pain caused. She just had to go for it, and that was the most terrifying thing of all. 

Lightly she knocked on the door, trying to make it seem casual. Though she was just dreaming of pounding on the door if it was what got Jim out there and talking to her quicker, but with just her look it wasn’t even him who answered. It was Jim’s mother, who flashed a warm smile and immediately invited Joyce in. The girl wished she had the time and the energy to catch up with Mrs. Hopper, who definitely had a soft spot for Joyce. But she had a feeling the woman wouldn’t feel so fondly in the next couple of months.  
At the sound of the two women chatting Jim descended from the stairs, knowing the ring of Joyce’s voice far too well to not know who else was in the house. “Hey...” he greeted both of them quietly, eyes immediately searching Joyce’s face for any hint of what on earth she could want. “Hey, wanna sit outside?” she nodded to the backyard, already moving from where she had been leaning against the counter. Small talk about the weather, and he plans beyond the walls of Hawkins High School got old fast, especially when she was lying through her teeth in her answers. 

Joyce opted for sitting on the swing a little ways into their backyard, where even with open windows the things that were being said wouldn’t be able to be heard. It had been at least a week since the pair had actually spoken to each other. Not since the day Joyce came over and spotted the military enlistment papers sitting carelessly on his table. Taunting her with their bold lettering, and straight to the point formatting. She was hurt, hurt beyond words that he would make such a life-changing decision without even mentioning it to her. Without any sort of talk on what that meant for their relationship. Especially when at that time they were doing incredible. It finally felt like they had something secure, and now it was all smoke in the wind again. 

“All I want is you!” She would yell out between tears, and her nervous pacing around his kitchen. Those words touching on a hundred different conflicts that had been piling up between them. Their complex, on and off again relationship. His jealousy when it came to Lonnie Byers’ affection for her. The fact that she couldn’t have him if he was fighting some baseless war on the other side of the country. He knew her stance on the military, and the tensions with Vietnam specifically. She understood that he was an individual, and that he was fully capable of making his own choices, but it felt like he was doing it just to taunt her. And, it felt like a quick way out of all their conflict. His way to end the fight for once and for all. Except… Now it just complicated an already shitty situation. Jim had immediately gotten defensive at her opposition to his decision, that it was his choice and he didn’t want anyone trying to change his mind once his was made up. Joyce wasn’t sure whether to take that as his dedication to enlisting, or Jim just trying to convince himself that he had made the right choice. 

“I’m not here to pick a fight… Or even go there right now,” Joyce said, a little worried he thought she was here to put in her last words on their fight, Which wasn’t at all the case. Right now that whole ordeal was a distant worry in the back of her mind. “I just need you to listen for a few moments.”  
With that she paused, waiting to make sure she got both a nod and eye contact from Jim before she continued. “I know this is horrible timing to tell you but… I’m pregnant.” Getting those words out felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders… only to be replaced with a sizable bag of bricks. Hurdle one of one hundred. The first one was the tallest though. 

Jim’s face was unreadable as he went through about four emotions in the same handful of seconds. “You’re…” he just trailed off, eyes immediately dropping down to see any evidence of her words in her figure. “Okay, uh…” he scratched the back of neck. It feeling like his own world was about to come crashing down, much like Joyce’s did just the week prior at the bombshell of his military enlistment. Why couldn’t she have told him sooner? It changed everything, but his decisions were already permanent. “How long were you gonna keep that from me?” he asked as he started to fish in his pocket for a lighter and his pack of cigarettes. Hands shaking slightly as he got one lit and brought up to his mouth. Not caring if his mother peered out the window to see him, this one was a need. Joyce’s eyes felt to the cigarette immediately, starting at it with an intense wanting. There had been a few studies published that smoking during pregnancy was causing some negative defects in infants, so she was really trying her hardest to resist the urge to smoke. Most days that was easier said than done though. “I wasn’t keeping anything from you,” she bit back, giving an eyeroll. “Seriously, you’re one to talk about secrets,” Joyce said she wouldn’t dig into the military thing now, but he was just making it too damn easy. “I’ve known about this for two weeks-” her suspicions ran a little longer than two weeks, but chalking a missed period up to stress was easy enough. It was the nausea and fatigue that Joyce couldn’t ignore. A very uncomfortable trip to the doctors confirmed the thought that had creeped in the back of her mind, and now she was faced with more than a handful of dilemmas she needed to address. Bless her mother for being willing to keep this quiet until Joyce could figure out some sort of gameplan. The clock was ticking though. One could only hide a pregnancy for so long, and Joyce knew the second her father found out she was going to be out of the house.

“Why didn’t you tell me right away?” Jim asked between drags of his cigarette, trying his best to be polite and blow the smoke into the wind away from her. “I wanted to figure out how… And then you decided to run off to be Hawkins’ next war hero so I never really had the time. Kinda fucked up to throw baby news in the middle of that arguement.” Joyce had her arms protectively folded over her chest. Setting up a wall with her body language. Every so often she gave a paranoid glance back over to the house. Having to make sure Jim’s mother wasn’t watching them. She couldn’t open that can of worms on top of everything else. “Still… This changes a lot of things-” he started to say, but Joyce cut him off. “Yeah, I know it does! But it’s too late now. Okay? Right now it’s figuring out how the hell we deal with this now,” she told him, rocking the swing a little bit. Jim stayed leaning against the swing, shifting to adjust for the movement. The cigarette he had lit was long gone, and he almost immediately started smoking another one. “And this part of the conversation I’m having for another day,” he snapped at her.Too preoccupied with his own thoughts to think that getting after his pregnant not-girlfriend isn’t exactly a reassuring start to this whole thing. “I’m not mad just… Give me the time to think about this,” he said quietly. Joyce looked up to try and meet his eyes, but Jim’s gaze was locked on some point ahead of him.

“Great talk,” Joyce mumbled as she stood up, quickly wiping a few tears off her cheeks as she quickly turned to leave. “You know where I’ll be when you’re actually willing to have a conversation about this,” she bit back at him, quickly going to her car straight from the backyard. Relieved that she didn’t have to go back through the house. She wouldn’t be able to stand the concerned look Mrs. Hopper would have at the sight of her crying.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce hears a few truths she doesn't really want to face, and Jim still has a lot of conflicting feelings about the whole situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it with Chapter 2, sorry if it got wordy. The direction I wanna take this fic is something that's just now really starting to come to me.

Four days. Four days Joyce had gone without speaking a word to Jim Hopper. Four days where it was just anxious glances to him when they passed by each other in the hallway. He always met her look too, bastard. Sure, she had gone way longer than four days talking to him before. Hell, her revealing she was pregnant was their first conversation in a week. But now it was a waiting game. She had told Jim to talk to her when he was ready (maybe not quite in that kind of a manner, but the point still stood) now he had to be the one to approach, and she knew just how ‘good’ he was at expressing his feelings. Especially when the feelings were far from positive. 

Though, those four days did give her some time to run through a few scenarios that she had running through her head. If there was one thing she could be grateful for, it was the fact her petite frame would buy her quite a bit of time before her stomach made it glaringly obvious she was pregnant as opposed to just having put on a few pounds. She could fly under the radar at school up until graduation. It was where to go from there that terrified her the most. A small part of her brain had the beautiful fantasy of getting to play house with Jim. In another timeline maybe he’d drop everything and marry her. Saving her from a chunk of the judgement she would face. But that simply wasn’t happening. Even if for some ungodly reason he decided he wasn’t done with her, he’d be across the fucking world for at least two years. She’d still be raising a newborn on her own. 

Then there was the glaring issue that boasted the name Lonnie Byers. Who graduated two years ago, but still had his hang ups on Joyce (which she would unfortunately indulge when her and Jim had were on an ‘off’ period). Because though she had a high amount of doubts that he was, there was the small potential Lonnie could have fathered the baby growing inside of her. She hoped that maybe Jim could come to that conclusion on his own, granted that she told him about her hookups with Lonnie. Though in the heat of it usually just a fuel to an argument, now held stakes that were a little higher. But still, she was completely certain Lonnie was _not_ the father. And if she could avoid any interaction with him on the subject she knew it would make her life a thousand times easier. Of course… He was one who would drop everything and need to do _something_ if he did find out she was pregnant was his child. It was a horrible, brief thought that crossed her mind. She didn’t want to trap anyone with her. But the option was there, to say the least. 

But again, she really, really hoped she could avoid that man altogether. For everyone’s sake. 

It was six days before Jim finally broke the silence between them. Joyce never thought he would actually do it. It hurt her a lot to think about, Jim deciding right like that they were done. She had thought highly enough of him as a person to not walk out-- He was starting to cast some doubt in her brain. Maybe it had been dramatic on her part to give up on him in less than a week but… she was always quick to assume the worst. It was kind of a personality trait for her at this point. Jim had caught her at the last second though, she was walking to her car when he as already leaned up against the driver’s side door, arms folded over his chest. Not expecting him to be standing there caused her to jump and drop her keys, which he swooped right in to pick up for her. Except she swiped them up first. “I can get them myself,” Joyce snapped defensively. 

“Hey, woah. Cool it down a notch, didn’t mean it in that way. I scared you, and am trying to make up for it by at least picking up what I made you drop,” Jim told her, keeping his voice even. Though it hurt for her to immediately assume the worst out of him. Maybe his initial reaction wasn't exactly the best, but he was trying. Joyce still shot him a glare, holding her things close to her chest. Immediately setting the stage that this conversation was going to be closed off. "I'm sorry for ignoring you, for starters. That was wrong of me." After sitting on it a few days he wish he would have stopped Joyce from storming off the other day. He let her leave that upset, and no doubt he had done nothing but let those feelings boil while he tried to collect his thoughts. Joyce rose her brows at him, giving a glance around the parking lot. Making sure that it was empty of others before fully giving him her attention. "This is a lot… for me, so I can't imagine what you're feeling…" Jim was trying his hardest to not to invalidate what she could be feeling. He rubbed his forehead, leaning against the side of her car. "I want to be there for you… don't think for a second I don't want to be," he tried to keep his voice even. Preparing himself for the 'but' that was going to come after that statement. "And… I wish it was easy as me saying I want to be there," Jim continued, but Joyce cut off his rambling. "Save it. I know. You're already enlisted. Can't back out, blah. Blah," Right now she couldn't stand to actually hear it from him. All about how badly he wanted to be there, because it didn't do a damn thing to help her in that moment. 

Jim gave a frustrated sigh, but countered it with a deep breath. He couldn't be snappy again, even if Joyce was putting words in his mouth. "Joyce, please… just let me talk. Okay?" He meets her eyes, needing her to be the one to listen now. "Then you can get whatever digs you want in. Alright, good," he said, nervously pushing his fingers through his hair. "I want to be there, or at least. Support you in some way. I have zero intentions of walking out of your life. I want that to be clear," Jim maintained eye contact with her while they talked. "Even if I have to go away for a little while… we can work this out." Joyce just shook her head. "That's so much easier said than executed. Especially for you," she told him, eyes narrowing a bit. "We do that, you can rest easy in your mind that you're doing _something_ but you're still not here. I'm still alone with a baby." She explained to him, just shaking her head while staring him down. This conversation was going nowhere, but a part of Joyce knew that it wasn't going to go any place she wanted to hear anyways. 

"Joyce," his voice took on that warning tone, the one he always used when he was trying to get her to reason with him, see his perspective. "I just… there's something you want me to say but I don't know what that is. I can't just… say sorry, I take back my enlistment. That's not how it works and you and I both know." Now, Joyce found herself getting angry. "No, okay. No. You don't get to play the victim here. You didn't even mention it to me you were thinking about it, not a fucking word. That was wrong of _you_. I don't care about your reasoning. I still thought you care about my insight and opinion to at least share the things you were planning on doing with your life. Especially something as big as joining the military," for the first time in this interaction Jim was quiet. As if seeing what she was saying different from his own, closed off side. "I'm not saying it's all your fault. Whatever… deeds done. But you didn't have to keep it this big secret," she rubbed her forehead, feeling her anxiety surge up when he just let out a long, and fairly loud exhale. "I… I'm sorry. About not telling you, or even mentioning it." he swallowed thickly. "I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings or… make this-" he just gestured vaguely to her stomach. "More complicated than it is already," he rubbed his hand down his face. "The reality of this all Joyce is that no matter how much you want me there, and how much I want to be there for this baby I can't be. It's plain and simple as that. Sucks to hear but I'm not gonna sugar coat it. Even if we ran off, got married, got a house. You'll still have to work, I'll still be gone. And nothing really ends up solved," he said simply, shrugging his shoulders. "And, Joyce, considering our history I don't think settling down is going to be as wonderful as you picture it to be." 

His words were making her uncomfortable. She shifted anxiously, face twisting as she bit her lip. Obviously trying not to burst into tears right there. "The same issues we have now are still going to exist. Hell, may even be worse throwing an infant into the mix," Jim just continued, not thinking his words would have such an impact on Joyce.

"What? So you don't even want to try? Is that how you see all of this?" She questioned, staring at him in disbelief. Was this really how he felt? That quick to give up on it all. "Not even worth a shot. You know. Maybe I really don't enjoy breaking up every other week. And- I don't know-" Joyce threw he hands up. So much for thinking maybe they'd get back together for good. "It doesn't matter. Actually, that’s it. I don’t think there’s anything left to this conversation. If nothing is going to change between us." she quickly brushed a tear from her cheek. Hoping that he wouldn't notice it.

"You can't run off everytime you hear something you don't want to, that isn't going to get us anywhere-" Jim tried to stop her, grabbing her arm. Wanting some sort of closure. 

"Don't touch me! Please just leave me alone." Joyce quickly shoved his arm away.

With that Jim just stared in disbelief, as if gauging his next move before deciding it wasn't worth it. "This isn't the end of this, I'm not letting it be," he told her, his words passionate, but not sinister. Maybe she needed the time to cool down, but he couldn't lose her like this.

Joyce watched as he finally walked away. She leaned against her car, wiping the tears that threatened to spill over her cheeks. It took about fifteen minutes before she felt okay enough to drive back home. Luckily enough the house was empty. She just sat down to try and do her homework. Though her eyes couldn't stay on the page for more than a couple of minutes at a time. There was a knock at the door, and Joyce jumped right up to open it. Not thinking too hard of who it might have been. Just focused on the distraction of hopefully just having to sign for a package.

If only anything her life could go that easy. She dreamed of that simplicity, but it definitely wasn't happening today. After an unproductive argument with Jim Hopper she thought she was in the clear of people she didn't want to see. At least for twenty-four hours, but now Lonnie Byers stood in front of her, and he didn't seem to be in high spirits. 

Great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! As always questions, comments, or concerns can be directed here or catch me on tumblr @1984byers

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to comment any questions/concerns/general things or you want to say. Or you can find my on tumblr @1984Byers as well.


End file.
